2016 Luis Ortiz vs 2016 Anthony Joshua

Read it again: 6 years ago Ortiz had fast hands; not faster than Ruiz's but fast nonetheless. Ortiz did however have faster feet than Ruiz, who is an absolute slug. The skill gap between 27 year boxer Ortiz and 8.5-9 year boxer AJ was very large. And Ortiz had more than "a bit of pop", he was a KO artist, unlike Ruiz and Usyk.

 

"Parker had better movement than Ruiz and Joshua beat him and Ruiz in almost a shutout."
"Ruiz didn't need any footwork to beat Joshua."

You're making the case for me. If Ruiz didn't need any footwork to beat 2019 AJ, why would Ortiz need any to beat 2016 AJ?

"Parker had better movement than Ruiz and Joshua beat him and Ruiz in almost a shutout."

That was a cautious post-Wlad AJ, not the pre-Wlad aggressive AJ. Parker and Ruiz are also light punchers (yet Ruiz still stopped AJ in 7 in the first fight) Parker had little ambition and had to contend with a bodyguard referee, while Ruiz was 20+ stone, untrained and in a massive ring. Take AJ's advantages away, put him against a skilled and dangerous puncher and he probably gets KO'd.

"Ortiz went down from a grazing right hand from Wilder. His chin is poor."

He was off balance but even assuming he wasn't he still took a number of flush bombs from ATG KO artist Wilder, not powder punching fat Andy. And Ortiz got up to take the fight to Wilder, having him in trouble in the 7th and emptying the tank trying to get him out, so he ticks the heart box as well.

"Ortiz is a gatekeeper."

Better than being a journeyman, which is where mentally shot AJ is headed.

 

Martin started boxing at 22, turned pro at 26.5 and fought AJ just before he turned 30. He had less than 8 years in boxing and less than 3.5 as a pro as a late starter, while the version who fought Ortiz had 13+ and 8.5 as a pro. Did you know that if you practice a skill for a long time you can get better at it? Because to my eye, Martin had made slight technical improvements by the time he fought Kownacki (the biggest improvement was the he came to win, he wasn't overwhelmed by the occasion) and major improvements by the time he fought Washington.

Or we can take your view that fighters never improve, fine. In that case, Martin was the same guy when he fought AJ as the Martin who 3 years prior "drew" with 6-12-6 with 0 KO's 302 lbs Mexican journeyman Alvaro Morales. Morales also took Andy Ruiz the distance, so to be fair to him he did better than AJ.

Molina was one of Wilder and AJ's mutual title defences lol, except the Molina who fought AJ was washed up and came to take a dive, as became his modus operandi.

 

No, you made the point that "Ortiz is slow". But he had fast hands and we've clearly ascertained that you don't need fast feet to beat AJ.

"Ortiz hasn't beaten anyone on the level of Joshua"

Neither had fat Andy. In fact, his competitive wins over washed up Liakhovich and washed up Kevin Johnson were far less impressive and lower level than Ortiz's over Jennings.

"Joshua has beaten guys who would beat Ortiz"

41+, 17 months inactive Wlad maybe but 2016 Ortiz beats everyone else. And styles make fights: beating Wlad in a life and death war in 2017 doesn't mean that you beat Ortiz in 2016, or even Ruiz in 2019. The guys AJ was actually beating back then were far inferior to Ortiz: green Whyte, green Martin, Breazeale.